IT major IBM has signed up with telecom service provider Surfline Communications to offer cloud solution — IBM servers, storage and software – to expand mobile data services in Ghana and across Africa.
ITU, telecom body under the aegis of UN, says Internet penetration in the West African nation stood at 3,568,757 users, representing 14 percent of the population in 2012.
According to Ghana Statistical Service, the country’s mobile telephony penetration rate has grown to 83 percent from 50 percent in 2008.
Surfline, which is expanding its 4G LTE network, will deploy IBM cloud platform to drive its critical backend processing and customer service delivery services.
IBM’s solutions for Surfline include IBM Power 770 and BladeCenter HS23 servers, IBM V7000 Storage systems, the PowerVM virtualization suite, Smart Cloud Monitoring, and Tivoli Storage Manager.
“We selected IBM’s Tivoli Storage Management and Smart Cloud Monitoring solutions because it offered us the best value in terms of our immediate and long term technology infrastructure requirements,” said Osei Badu-Nkansah, chief information officer at Surfline.
IBM cloud solution will help Surfline optimize its technology costs, improve operational efficiency, achieve better return on investment and ensure excellent service delivery to the emergent and largely unfilled data services needs of Ghana’s businesses, government agencies, professional communities, and residential users.
“The telecommunications landscape in Ghana is set to undergo fundamental shifts as a growing number of users take up mobile data. Deploying IBM’s trusted and industry-tested capabilities is a significant beginning for Surfline Communications as it begins to offer its services to its customers,” said Joe Mensah, country general manager for IBM Ghana.
